A nation of people who don't Greet or Smile and are unkind...
I work in an IT Services company which gives me an opportunity to meet people from diverse educational backgrounds and different parts of the country.The craze over It jobs and the the abundance of opportunities in the sector has drawn people from every part to the field, some driven by ambition, some by financial necessity and some by inertia.
While the portrayal in the media and movies of IT companies and workers is almost always of neatly dressed, sauve young professionals who would put Shakespeare and milton to shame with their flawless english and impecaable communication skills.
This perception is further strengthened by the numerous group discussions and unending mock interviews colleges subject their students to in their pre final and final years supposedly to prepare them better for an Career in the IT world.
Brace yourself though! When you enter the gates of any IT Services company in India today, it is a facade, the purported professionalism is all a thin veneer. Once you peel that layer of glossy buildings, buses and ISO-9001-ish fixtures, what lies beneath is essentially what organizations like the Govt run PSUs, Nationalized banks are composed of.
The hallmarks of our Professional workforce(I use this word with a little regret) are arrogance,carelessness bordering on callousness and parochial and at times bucolic attitudes. Every day is an exercise in one up-manship with Status reports and calls being reminiscent of Arrows and darts from our tribal and feudal past.
I am no expert on Psychology, but I sincerely believe its the School system or rather the lack of it which is at root cause of this problem. Here are my reasons why I believe Schools influence professional attitudes to such a degree...
1. While Colleges impart Field specific "Higher" education, they have little or no role in teaching us how to interact with people or life skills.
2. Most of our schools have little or no social skills training imparted to children in our nation. Little things like greeting people, smiling at people are alien to us. While one might argue it is up to parents to bring up their children with these skills, one must also consider schools have an equally significant role and at times may be better qualified to impart these skills that parents themselves lack.
3. I think our Govt schools more than imparting education , while not denying the role they have played in shaping the nation and producing great students, also leave the students with a stigma almost throughout their professional life, to shake off which, the people from the schools often become overtly defensive or at times put extreme pressure on themselves.
4. On the other end of the spectrum, there are people from our "ivy league ish schools, who never get out of the school mode literally and each day is an exercise in exhibition of their better communication skills. They assume to be a natural leader when it comes to team and are often unkind, the need to lead often seems to come at the cost of being kind.
This list is not all, but this is at the top of my mind as i write, Our Nation for all its hopes of being a superpower by 2020 has no hope- none whatsover unless it teaches it kids not to be doctors, architects, engineers, scientists- but better human beings, the kinds that smile,greet and are kind to each other. And the panacea for that lies in revamping our school system...
